Pierre Soulages is a French artist whose thick black brushstrokes—labeled outrenoir (beyond black)—against lighter backgrounds have characterized his painting and printmaking practice since the late 1940s. Born on December 24, 1919 in Rodez, France, he was part of the movement towards abstraction with Jean Fautrier and Hans Hartung in Paris in the mid-20th century. His gestural paintings echoed the Abstract Expressionist movement emerging simultaneously in the United States, while his strong application of pigment in non-representational forms is said to have been influenced by the prehistoric and Romanesque art near his childhood home. Soulages became the first contemporary artist to be shown at St. Petersburg’s Hermitage...